Journey Man
by Sakura123
Summary: Jet Bradley and the saga of the winding road of childhood, teenagedom, adulthood through the sporadic point of view of a nameless road, time and the seasons. COMPLETE.
1. 9 hours 26 minutes 42 seconds past

**Title:** Journey Man

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** Jet Bradley and the saga of the winding road of childhood, teenagedom, adulthood through the sporadic point of view of a nameless road, time and the seasons.

**Disclaimer:** Tron/Tron: Legacy and all things related are property of Steven Lisberger, Bonnie MacBird and Walt Disney Studios (and some other guys I'm probably forgetting but can't care to remember).

**Author's Note**: I just might be watching this old 1986 series starring Christopher Daniel Barnes and watching an episodic father son road trip across the states just might be the inspiration behind this.

* * *

9 hours 26 minutes 42 seconds (past) – 118 Words

* * *

The bounce and rock of the old van becomes routine; adjusting underneath the afghan, Jet listens in on his parent's intentional whispers under the engine as they carry on a conversation about work.

He isn't too tired, but he doesn't want to keep his eyes open so he allows them to think he's asleep. He remains still, moving only when the knots in his back become too much to ignore.

He wants to spread himself out on the shaky backseat that they reattached to the interior of his mother's van, but knows better than to tempt the fates a second time; landing on your stomach because the van stops isn't the greatest way to wake up after all.


	2. 8 hours 42 minutes 10 seconds present

8 hours 42 minutes 10 seconds (present) - 247 Words

* * *

"I think we went the wrong way," Jet sat up straighter in his seat as he glanced behind him, the long stretch of road behind them the clearest indication of how far they've gone since leaving the motel. Lora regarded the map for a moment then glanced back up at her son's sun burnt face.

"If you'd taken the right turn on Albuquerque…," Lora trailed off at the sight of Jet's immediate frustration and the roll of his head as he let out a whine.

"A Bugs Bunny joke, mom, really?" He moaned, while his mother laughed at his expression and how his John Lennon glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose.

"Aw, c'mon, sweetheart. Lighten up, I was only joking," She smiled.

"Well, I wasn't, I really think we're lost!"

Still, Lora's good mood persisted though her expression was moderated upon picking up the distress in his eyes. "Jet, calm down. The next person or place we come across we can just ask for directions, alright? No harm, no foul."

Jet looked unconvinced but nodded all the same knowing his mother was probably better at handling an aimless situation such as their. "Okay, fine."

"That's my boy," Lora gave his shoulder a supportive squeeze. Returning her attention to the map on her lap, she occupied herself with trying to retrace their steps after leaving the diner. The sooner they figured out where they were the less she had to explain to Alan and the others.


	3. 8 hours 15 minutes 43 seconds future

8 hours 15 minutes 43 seconds (future) - 167 Words

* * *

Sam and Quorra sang obnoxiously loud to a Huey Lewis song playing over the radio, bodies jerking back and forth with the twangy rhythm of the music. Jet never had a plausible reason to hate "Power of Love", but listening to the otherwise dying-frog worthy vocals lacking any semblance of harmony in the duet of his best friends was concrete enough of a reason now.

"It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes-" Quorra's immaculate bob cut swished across her face as she turned and pointed dramatically to Sam who picked up the next line of the bridge with a boisterous, "-But it might just save your life!" Huey Lewis fished out the chorus for them and the two erupted into a fit of laughter, thick as thieves and oblivious to the creases on Jet's forehead. Jet rolled the window down and leant up against the door as he continued to guide the van down the road.

"It's official. I'm in hell," He muttered to himself.

* * *

(c) "Power of Love" (Lyrics) - Huey Lewis and the News


	4. 4 hours 26 minutes 14 seconds past

4 hours 26 minutes 14 seconds (past) - 281 Words

* * *

"What else do you do in your world?" The question came unprovoked, and genuinely fascinated by her curiosity in the same way she was curious of Users, Jet couldn't help but answer in a way that would diminish what was nativity brought on by romanticism. Rocking back and forth in the seat behind Quorra, he said, "Well, there's always the all you can eat café, karaoke night, libraries and road trips," Jet offered. Really, what he could say about "his world" that Sam hadn't already indoctrinated with such a simple grandiose that she'd be satisfied?

"Road trips?" Quorra repeated, pulling her eyes away from the multitude of colors swimming below them from the Progress Bar and the neon signs flashing wanted posters for fugitive programs. "Like the ones Flynn would tell me about?" Jet nodded and patted the side of the hoverbike. "Yeah, it's literally self-imposed imprisonment in a car in the name of family or bonding to see the sights," He replied. "Not unlike what we're doing, only without the being chased part."

Quorra grinned, adjusting her grip on the bars; she removed from hand from the bar and initiated the auto-pilot. Jet braced himself as the vehicle lurched and veered to the right, very carefully Quorra placed both hands on the seat of the bike and pushed herself up. In the pose of a ballerina, her entire body supported by the strength of her arms and hands, she turned so that her back was to the world before them and she was facing Jet. "I'd love to visit your world," A sad smile graced her lips. "It sounds lovely."

Jet remained silent, determined to keep his cynicism to himself.


	5. 4 hours 17 minutes 45 seconds present

4 hours 17 minutes 45 seconds (present) – 519 Words

* * *

"Would you slow down? Walking faster isn't going make the cars stop any quicker!" Alan shouted over the torrent of traffic zooming past him and Jethro. The eighteen year old boy turned on one heel, the jacket hanging on his arm at the mercy of the winds and shouted something his father couldn't hear. Alan continued toward his son at a steady pace, content with watching the young man tucker himself out before he reached him.

Hitchhiking hadn't been in the plans of either man, but neither had the car breaking down in the middle nowhere so far from their destination. Stranded without a decent cell phone signal or outlet to recharge the battery, the two preceded into the wild blue yonder of monochrome brown, blue and yellow in the hopes of coming across haunted gas station or hitching a ride from the flux of traffic that passed them on the road. Once he was at his son's side, Alan gestured to his jacket and placed it over his head. His exhausted son gave him a look, as if to ask what he was doing. "It's for shade. Believe me, it'll help," He told him, taking the jacket from around Jet's arm. Despite his reluctance to believe him, the jackets over their heads did provide some protection from the sun, but did little to relieve the sting of the summer sun. "Maybe we should've just taken a plane," Jet muttered as he shoulders began to slouch. "Maybe, and maybe we should've just came better prepared," Alan countered calmly. "No point in wallowing about it now."

"Easy for you to say," Jet rubbed the sweat from his arm on his shirt. "You don't have sensitive skin."

"You can blame your good 'ol grandmother for that," Alan chuckled. "She'd burn quicker than an egg under the sun and that's saying something consider my family's resilience to sunburn."

"Bah, resilience, there's a good one," Jet took one whiff of his underarm and recoiled. He was smelly and sticky from his own perspiration, he could've been attracting all kinds of bugs with his musk and yet he found himself unable to care. He squinted up at the distance. The road seemed to slope and go on forever; the ripples of the heat rising off the ground distorted the environment enough that it almost seemed unreal. The last thing he needed was to question what was in front of him, not when he was just getting himself reasserted in the world again.

"You think mom is wondering where we are?"

"If I know your mother, she probably is, but she also knows her van has tendency to break down at inconvenient times," Alan answered.

"Ah, yes, the mystical intuition of motherhood," Jet mused. "You've gotta tell me how that parental sixth sense thing works."

"That, unfortunately, is one of life's great mysteries," Alan extended his arm forward and raised a thumb as a truck began to approach them. "Maybe when you're a dad I'll fill you in."

"Me with kids," Jet grinned at his father's optimism. "That'll be the day."


	6. 2 hours 56 minutes 13 seconds past

2 hours 56 minutes 13 seconds (past) – 494 Words

* * *

The color blue followed him around like a second shadow. His bedroom was blue, his favorite doll as a child was blue, his birthstone was blue and, whether or not he was aware of it, he somehow incorporated blue into whatever he wore. In a literal aspect, blue meant about as much to him as the color red and whether or not he acknowledged he was a two tone-blonde; it was a color, nothing he worked his life around or lived by example.

"What are you thinking about?"

Except, fridge logic dictated the subconscious acknowledged how he internalized blue as a safe place; he remembered his mother wearing a chunky blue off-the-shoulder sweater when he was about eight, he remembered how he equated being hugged by her in that sweater as the blanket that scared the monsters from under his bed when he should've been old enough to know there was no such thing as monsters. Sitting in a cramped motel room with an underwater motif (complete with mermaids swimming on the walls and headboards), submerged by blue nightlights and lying on a waterbed, it was hard not to sink back into that childish mentality.

Turning on his side, riding out the uncomfortable swish-wash of the bed as it reacted to his movement, Jet shrugged his shoulders and pounded his pillow. "Thinking about what I'll do when I go back to college," He answered. "What about you, you plan on doing any special for college?"

"Yeah," Sam replied. "I'm thinking about not going."

"What? Are you serious?"

"Completely," Sam rolled toward the edge of the bed and stretched his legs in such a way that he appeared to be imitating a ballerina extending her body as she imitated a bird on the balls of his 'feet'.

"Well, how come?" Jet sat up, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed so as to maintain balance. "You seemed so dead set on completing your 'higher education', so this is kinda left field."

Sam didn't say anything for the longest time; he stared down at the lifelines in his palms, every once and a while he seemed ready to answer but not a sound came from his mouth. Finally, he raised his gaze toward his curious friend and said, "I just think I need some time to myself before I go back to school, you know?"

"Did Arnspiger say anything to you-?"

"Nah, not really," Sam interjected "I've kinda stopped listening to the doc somewhere around fourteen."

"So this is just about personal space and everything?"

"Pretty much; I just need to get my head together before I reintegrate with the whole of society," Sam sighed. "Nothing personal."

"Never thought it was. But, wherever you end up going, drop me a line sometime," Jet yawned, falling back on the bed. "I'd hate to think you were planning to disappear."

Despite the implication behind his words, Sam found himself smiling at his friend's sarcasm. "I think I can manage an e-mail or two."


	7. 1 hour 35 minutes 37 seconds past

1 hour 35 minutes 37 seconds (past) – 920 Words

* * *

Shopping was a relatively easy task to get through on a good day if you didn't have a wandering a pair of feet accompanying you. Lora couldn't take her eyes off her son for one second before she found him wandering off, in search of something vastly more stimulating than scrolling through the canned good section for greens or cranberry juice.

In a sea of blue and red children's coats, Lora was thankful she ended up with a boy with an affinity for the color brown on barn jackets (something she could only assume was from Alan's family). He was easy to spot, even easier to find. Jet sat on the floor surrounded by comic books and an open bag of sweets he bought earlier from Rite Aid, his nose currently in a Spider-Man comic. "Hey, you, what did I tell you about wandering off?" Lora asked, rolling the cart beside him.

"You said not to," Jethro answered without ever looking up from his comic. "Can I get this?"

"Maybe later, I've only got enough cash to buy the important stuff right now," Lora said.

"C'mon, mom, please?"

"No, Jethro," Lora told him again. "Now put those comics away. I want to get you home before your father gets off work." Jet let out a little huff and gathered the comic books back up. His reaction was pretty understated all things considered. Instead of loud, he was quiet and content with listening to her order. Jet was prone to throwing a fit when he couldn't get his way, not unlike a lot of other kids.

Maybe he was just tired.

Grabbing his bag of candy Jet fell into line behind his mother as she proceeded out of the magazine and crafts section. The shopping cart was full to the brim with food. Lora went over in her mind how much money she had left and whether or not she'd be able to pay for it all. "Can I get some ice cream?"

"Not today, honey."

"What about pretzels?"

"Nope."

"Chips?"

"No."

"Are you going to say no to everything I ask?"

"No," Lora smiled much to her son's annoyance. Getting in line with other shoppers, Lora relaxed for a moment and started to organize her cart for better accessibility. Jet shimmed through the space between the market carts and the counter to join her up at the front. His eyes wandered the magazine rack for a moment, looking for something of interest. In the corner of her Lora saw his face crinkle and his tongue stick out. "Her fingernails are ugly," He said, perhaps too loudly.

Lora glanced up and focused on what she believed what caught her son's attention. The cashier stared long and hard at the little boy, her long green fingernails in plain view against the box of cereal she moved to grab. "Jethro," Lora reached out and pulled on his ear. "Ow, mom!" Jet batted her hand away from his ear.

"Jet, you know better than to behave like that," Lora admonished him.

"I wasn't talking about her, I meant her!" He pointed the mini-advertisement of a woman with her talon-like fingernails poised in front of her face. The cashier leaned forward a little and stared at the ad then back at Jet. "It was still rude," She told him.

"Only if you're the lady in the picture," Was all Jet offered by way of an apology. If looks could kill, then Jet would be six feet under from all the disapproving looks he was getting from the women surrounding him.

Jet decided to wander off again, half way through the line and already stacking her items onto the conveyer belt Lora thought to check on her son only to find him missing from her side once again. "Jethro," She exhaled in exasperation.

A teenaged girl standing behind her tapped her on the shoulder, Lora spared her a glance at the same she set a box of Cheerios onto the conveyor belt. "I think he went over to the magazine section," The girl said with an easy smile.

"Oh, thank you," Lora sighed.

Lora finished the purchase of her food and made the trip back around the store to find her son. As the girl suspected Jethro had returned to the magazine section, standing this time instead of sitting as he completed reading the Spider-Man comic. "Jethro, come on, we've gotta go now," She told him again. Jet frowned again, skimming through the issue he picked up a few key phrases and watched the action unfold before his eyes until he reached the end.

Torn at the idea of leaving the comic book behind for someone else to buy, Jet placed it back on the shelf with the other copies. He never bothered to hide the look of frustration on his face as he followed his mother out of the store to the car. Lora made short work of her baggage. She tossed everything into the back, Jet climbed through the trunk and over to the passenger side seat of his mother's rust bucket of a van.

Lora joined him not a few seconds later, ready to leave the store behind them. On the road, Lora played the easy-listening station, which affixed a sort of look of displeasure on Jet's face. "Can't we listen to Journey?"

"No, we listened to Journey on the way here. Now we listen to something I like," Lora told him. Jet sank further in his seat and closed his eyes. Why was life so unfair to him?


	8. 1 hour 7 minutes 36 seconds present

1 hour 7 minutes 36 seconds (present) – 380 Words

* * *

It was a case of the skill doing what the mind otherwise kept in check. He sat in the principal's office waiting for said authority figure, his mother and father to reappear from the clandestine conversation they slipped into the other room to have. He tapped his fingers against the hardwood arm of the chair on the other side of the desk for a good ten minutes, counting the tick-tock of the hand clock right behind him above the office door and watching the shapes of the birds hopping across tree branches.

Without so much as thinking he rose from his chair and walked around the desk and made himself in the comfortable office chair belonging to Principal Casway. He gave the mouse a swish to reactivate the screen, his fingers went to work on the keyboard and made short work of the principal's password (Miss America sitting pretty on his desk was a dead giveaway like most vices). Data and prompt screens flew across the screen filling his head with problems and answers, he made no note of what he was really doing until he heard the office door swing open and slam against the wall.

"Young man what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

He jumped up, pulling his hands away from the keyboard like he'd been smacked by a stainless steel ruler. Principal Casway, his secretary, Alan and Lora stood practically squashed in the doorway watching him like dogs who'd just become aware that the fox had robbed the henhouse. Jet pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, the enormity of his actions slowly blossoming in his head. He put on an easy smile and shrugged. "I was just- uh, checking the security system for bugs," He told him.

"Jet, tell me you didn't just hack the school's computer system," Lora said, her dread evident.

As per his mother's request, he didn't speak a word of his actions. He hunched his shoulders, gave his parents a smile, rose from the chair and sat back down in his original place.

Sufficed to say, the stunt landed him in more trouble than his parents could cook up with a simple revoke of privileges.


	9. 00 hours 00 minutes 00 seconds now

00 hours 00 minutes 00 seconds (now) – 298 Words

* * *

"Tell me again, why we had to go on a vacation for "us" time?"

"It was either this or stay my apartment and you know how everyone loves to visit when they know you're around," Jet deadpanned, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I think I would prefer the interruption to this."

"Ah, don't tell me we're missing the office already?"

"Yes, actually. I could be doing work and getting paid instead of lying here with you-"

"Your incredibly sexy boyfriend-"

"Watching the sun move a quarter inch across the wall since five in the morning," Eva finished, pulling the cover from off her body and over Jet's head. Jet inclined his head toward her as she rose from the mattress and chuckled. "You know the curtain's open, right?"

"It's not like they've never seen a woman before," Eva replied, reaching over and pulling the cover from his face. As she draped the sheet over her shoulders and pulled her arms forward to cover herself, his eyes wandered and he grinned. "Well, there's sex education and then there's indecent exposure."

Eva cooed and gave her hips a swish. "Is that right?"

"Won't you think of the poor children you're scaring for life right now?" Jet sat up, reaching forward he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back onto the bed. Eva screeched out a laugh, legs kicking as he proceeded to tickle her. "Wow, look at that! I think I got a squeal outta you, that's a first." Eva twisted around so she could bop him on the head, instead her hand missed and swiped his glasses from his face.

"Hey, those are expensive," Jet cried, half amused and partially shocked by her aim. His glasses tumbled across the bed, stopping short of the pillow right next to Eva's foot. As he reached for them she stifled a laugh with her hands then cupped his face. "I'm sorry," She chuckled. Once his glasses were secure on his face, Jet pressed a kiss to edge of her jaw.

"No worries," He told her. "You missed my eye by a quarter inch."


End file.
